A comprehensive resource on "gwaebul" (掛佛), the large Buddhist hanging scroll paintings familiar yet little understood at various Buddhist ceremonies, has been published.
The National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage (Director Lim Jong-deok) under the Korea Heritage Service announced on the 27th the publication of "Gwaebul: Through Pigments and Records," an academic volume containing the conservation science research findings from its "Precision Survey Project on Large Buddhist Paintings" conducted over 10 years from 2015 to 2024. The e-book is freely accessible to anyone through the institute's National Heritage Knowledge Portal website.
Gwaebul are large Buddhist paintings used during outdoor ceremonies at temples, representing iconic cultural heritage of Korean Buddhist art with their overwhelming scale and vibrant colors. However, their massive size and high risk of damage have made precise investigation difficult until now. Over the past decade, the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage conducted scientific conservation surveys on 64 major gwaebul from temples across the nation.
The newly published "Gwaebul: Through Pigments and Records" is an academic work that deeply explores the secrets of gwaebul production by combining scientific analysis with humanities-based historical research, based on the survey data accumulated over the years. The book documents the preservation conditions of gwaebul as well as the pigments, textiles, and coloring techniques used in their creation, accompanied by photographs. Furthermore, the researchers compared inscriptions left at the bottom of gwaebul and records from historical documents such as the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty and Seungjeongwon Ilgi (Daily Records of the Royal Secretariat) with actual analysis results, striving to three-dimensionally reconstruct the pigment procurement environment and production conditions of that era.
The National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage stated, "This academic publication holds significant scholarly value in that it consolidates gwaebul research, which had been conducted in fragmented ways, from the perspective of materials. It is expected to serve as important foundational data for future repairs and original form restoration of gwaebul."